Page 42 of Trick Me
“Two fifty-eight,” Ash states, checking his watch.
I pull out the blank parchment from his jacket’s pocket and lift it to the mirror. Still nothing. Though something worrying flares in my stomach. What if this doesn’t work?
“Maybe at exactly three o’clock?”
We wait, watching the second hand tick closer. Two fifty-nine.Three. Two. One.
“Now,” I breathe, holding the parchment steady.
Nothing.
“Fuck!” Ash growls, and I don’t blame him.
“Maybe we’re doing it wrong,” I say. “Maybe ‘reflection’ means something else. Self-reflection? Reflecting on the night?”
“Or maybe she lied.” Ash stares at the mirror like it has personally betrayed him. “Maybe this is permanent.”
The wolf in my head gives a mournful whine at the defeat in his tone, and something in me tightens in response. Not just the wolf. Me. Erynn. The woman who walked into this place with ghosts whispering at her heels and a job built entirely on hearing them. Who would she be without that? Not a medium. Not a guide for the dead. Just… ordinary.
The thought lands hard. Heavier than I expected. I’ve always known who I was. What I was. My abilitywasn’t just part of me; it defined me. Gave me purpose. Identity. Without it, who would come to me? Who would need me?
A hollow ache grows in my chest, sharp and sudden. If the curse is permanent, I lose more than my connection to the dead. I lose myself.
“I don’t want to be stuck like this,” I whisper, staring at my hands. “I’ve only ever been the girl who hears ghosts. It’s all I know. If I lose that… I don’t know what’s left of me.”
Ash reaches out, his fingers curling gently around mine. Not just comforting, but grounding.
“You’re more than that,” he says. “I know we only just met, but tonight… it doesn’t feel like I’m talking to a stranger.”
I glance up, startled by the sincerity in his voice. He’s watching me with a furrowed brow, a faint crease between his eyebrows.
“Is it weird that I feel like I know you better than half the people in my life?” I murmur. “Like… all those conversations and awkward dinners with coworkers, and none of it felt like this. Like any of it mattered.” Well, except, Sera… She’s like my sister.
“I don’t think it’s weird,” he answers softly. “You see people differently when you’re cursed together.”
I laugh out loud. “So what now?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just lifts our joined hands and turns them so his thumb brushes the insideof my wrist. Light touch. Barely there. But it sends heat curling through my belly.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says. “Together.” He studies me for a beat too long. His gaze isn’t intense. It’s… open. Like he’s letting me see all the thoughts behind it.
“Together,” I repeat. “And after?”
The words that pour out catch me off guard. I blink, trapped between now and then.
“When we’re back to normal?” he adds, still tracing slow circles on my skin.
I want to answer. Want to tell him something hopeful or funny or clever. But all I can do is picture my empty apartment. The silence. The lack of footsteps that aren’t mine. The ghosts that used to be there and might not be anymore.
I swallow hard. “Let’s solve one crisis at a time.”
He leans in. Just enough that his breath skims the side of my throat. “That wasn’t a no.”
My chest flutters again, nerves and warmth colliding. I lean forward without realizing it. The wolf in my head stills, calm and content in a way I’ve never felt before.
Then he lifts his wrist, showing me his watch.
Three thirty.
